Finally, breathing hard, heart pounding, Mac broke away. “Get your shower. Have you eaten?” When Dink nodded, he said, “Good.” Then he glanced at the bag on the floor. Cleared his throat, said as casually as he could, “Put your things in my room, okay?”
Dink smiled. Leaned over without another word and grabbed his bag, and headed down the hallway toward the master bedroom.
Mac watched him go, still breathing hard, his heart still pounding, but now his cock was straining against the zipper on his jeans. Twenty years seemed to melt away as he tasted Dink on his lips. They’d both been kids; now they were grown men. Men with histories, with a lot of life well lived. Then he thought of all he had to do tomorrow, of the long drive ahead. The project. The team.
And he put it all out of his mind. Took a long, calming breath, and followed Dink down the hallway.
The bedside lamp left most of the big room in shadows. Mac was waiting, sitting on the edge of the bed with a glass of Jack in his hand when Dink walked out of the bathroom wearing nothing but a dark green towel wrapped around his slim hips.
He paused in the doorway, whether for Mac to look his fill, or maybe to give himself a moment to consider what they were going to do tonight. For whatever reason, he stood there with the bright overhead light from the bathroom glistening off his wet hair. It was slicked back, framing his face, emphasizing the sharp cut of his cheekbones, the fullness of his lips, the dark brows and lashes around his spectacular steel-blue eyes.
This was so much more than the face the nation saw on the nightly news. This was a side of Nils Dinkemann that Mac knew very few were privileged to see.
Dink was and always had been a spectacularly beautiful man.
He still had a perfect body—toned and well muscled, as lean and fit as he’d been twenty years ago. More muscle, and the hair on his chest was thicker, darker than it had been, his eyes a bit more world-weary, but while he was Nils to the world, to Mac he would always be Dink, the one Mac had counted on during all those tumultuous years when they’d been so damned young, so terribly vulnerable.
The one he knew he could count on tonight. Dink grinned and walked across the thickly carpeted floor.
Mac handed him a drink. “Jack on ice. Hope that’s okay.”
Dink laughed. “It is, but do you expect to talk here, like this? Do I get to put my pants on?”
Slowly, Mac shook his head. “I thought we’d talk later. I know you—you won’t pay attention if you think you’re going to get laid.” It was only a small lie. Mac hadn’t been able to think of anything else. He’d fought the urge to join Dink in the shower. It had been all he could do to sit here, waiting impatiently until Dink had finally shut off the water and come to him.
Laughing, Dink took a swallow of the whisky. “You’re right. So why are you still dressed?”
Mac shook his head once again, but he didn’t look away. Kept his gaze trained on Dink’s face and wondered what was going through that amazing mind of his. He’d never been able to read Dink. “I don’t know. Started to undress, felt sort of foolish. Decided to wait.”
Still clutching the towel at his waist, Dink slowly shook his head. He glanced around the room, focused once again on Mac. “Don’t ever feel foolish with me, Mac. We’ve got too much history, too much between us for that.”
Mac stared at him. So many images crashed into his mind, so many memories, and the words came spilling out, unfiltered and painfully honest. “I watch your show every night. Did you know that? I mean, I see you here the way you are now, standing in my bedroom wearing nothing but a towel with your hair all wet and slicked back, your eyelashes spiky, and I’m picturing you on the damned TV, not a hair out of place, makeup perfect, wearing a suit and tie.” He laughed, feeling even more awkward.
Dink smiled softly. Not the practiced news anchor smile, but the one Mac remembered from long ago. His fingers moved nervously over the knotted towel. Water beaded on his shoulders and in the mat of hair on his chest. “Behind that desk, I’m wearing faded jeans with that suit, if it makes any difference.”
Mac stared at him a minute, felt his heart rate speed up. His voice cracked, sounded unusually hoarse when he said, “There are nights, sometimes, when I picture you naked behind that desk. I’ve never forgotten what it was like between us, Dink. Never.”
Dink sat beside him, enveloping Mac in the familiar smell of Mac’s soap overlaying the subtle scent that was uniquely Dink. He stared at Mac for a moment and sighed. “I wasn’t going to, but I have to ask. Have there been many others?”
Mac shook his head. “No. No men. Very few women.” He felt foolish, admitting the truth, but he could always be honest with Dink, even when it hurt. About everything but who and what Zianne really was. He’d not been honest about that. He would, though. Tonight he’d tell him everything.
“Zianne was always there, in my head. I tried dating, but it was a long time after she left before I even attempted to go out with another woman. No good. Tried seeing a few women just for sex, but I was better off with my own hand than trying to fuck someone who wasn’t her. I even thought, for a while, that I’d be better off if I tried to forget her.”
He laughed, but his laughter choked off, like a sob. Not what he wanted at all. Not tonight. “That lasted about an hour. She owns my heart, Dink. She always has. But you?” He reached out and placed his fingers against Dink’s chest. Felt the steady
ka-thump, ka-thump, ka-thump
beneath his fingertips. “You own a part of me that even Zianne can’t touch. You have from the beginning.”
Dink downed the drink in his hand and set the glass aside. Then he leaned forward and started working at the buttons on Mac’s flannel shirt. Mac watched him—not helping, just watching—and concentrated instead on the way Dink chewed on his lower lip, the intense focus he gave to each button.
He was as nervous as Mac. There was nothing now of the famous anchorman, the reporter who’d terrified Mac with his stories filmed in dangerous war zones around the globe, who sat before a camera and calmed a frightened nation with his smooth, unruffled approach to whatever crisis occurred. No, right now there was none of the polish or the finesse. He wasn’t Nils Dinkemann, America’s eye on the world. Not here, not now.
Not with his fingers trembling as he worked the buttons free down the front of Mac’s shirt. Not with his audible swallow as he slipped the soft flannel over Mac’s shoulders. Mac finished taking it off. Then he kicked off his shoes, unzipped his jeans, and slid them over his legs.
He’d skipped shorts after his shower earlier, and there was no hiding the erection that curved up thick and hard, almost touching his belly. Dink didn’t say a word, though he had to know it was all for him. Because of him. He slid to the floor and grabbed Mac’s thighs in both hands, leaned close, and nuzzled the thick, dark hair at his groin.
Mac closed his eyes and let the sensations course through him, but he wanted to watch. Had to watch.
He opened his eyes. Dink’s were closed. He hummed softly as he ran his lips over the smooth tip of Mac’s cock, a soft sound of pleasure as he licked and gently stroked Mac’s sensitive skin with his tongue. Slowly, so slowly, spreading soft, sucking kisses over the silky crown, his fingers digging into Mac’s thighs with enough pressure to leave bruises. Mac sighed and lay back on the bed with his legs over the edge, but he propped himself up on his elbows. Watching.
Dink took him deeper, sucked harder, used his teeth and tongue, his lips and his hands to give Mac the kind of pleasure he’d not experienced for the past two decades.
There were unexpected calluses on Dink’s hands. Calluses that snagged lightly in the thick hair curling at the base of Mac’s cock. Groaning, Mac collapsed his elbows, lay back, and arched his back. So close. He’d not expected to feel his control slipping this quickly, but he was so close. “Dink. I’m not going to ...”
Dink pulled back. His cheeks were flushed, his normally silvery-blue eyes dark as midnight. “I know. I don’t want to finish you yet.” He laughed. “Hold on a minute.”
He stood, loosened the towel, and let it drop. Mac sucked in a needy breath. Damn, Dink was even more beautiful now than he’d been all those years ago. Where he’d been so lean he was almost skinny, now his body rippled with well-developed muscle. His erection stood hard and proud, curving out from his sleek hips, thick and dark, with a single pearly drop at the tip.
Mac licked his lips, imagining the salty taste. Remembering.
Dink wrapped his fingers around his cock, squeezed tightly at the base, and then slowly stroked upward. Mac forced himself to look up, to watch the expression on Dink’s face.
Dink was breathing through his mouth, eyes shut, body flushed with need, but he held himself for a moment, obviously struggling for control. After a moment, he let out a deep breath and grinned at Mac. “Close, damn it.” Chuckling, he walked across the room to the bathroom and his overnight kit.
Propped up once more on his elbows, Mac watched Dink’s reflection in the bathroom mirror as he reached into the kit, pulled out a small packet, and ripped it open. As Dink carefully sheathed himself, Mac sat up and wrapped his fingers around his own cock.
His erection was still damp from Dink’s mouth. Hard and curving upward, the crown brick red from blood pounding its length. Veins pulsed, thick and ripe along his shaft. Cupping his balls with his left hand, Mac merely held himself, holding on but not stroking while his blood throbbed beneath his fingers in time with his thundering heart.
Just holding himself, waiting as Dink smoothed the condom along his full length.
Then Dink was back. His cock stood high, thrusting up out of a nest of springy dark curls, curving toward his flat belly. He carried a tube of lubricant in his hand.
The spit dried in Mac’s mouth. It had been so long. Twenty years since ...
Dink tossed the lube on the bed beside Mac; spoke Mac’s thoughts aloud. “I’ve waited so damned long for this, Mac. I wasn’t sure it would happen again, but I’ve hoped. Dear God, how I’ve hoped.” He pressed his hand against Mac’s chest and gently shoved. Mac lay back on the bedspread without any resistance.
Dink knelt between Mac’s legs and once again used his mouth, nipping at Mac’s inner thighs, running his tongue the length of his erection, suckling first one ball between his lips, then the other.
Mac groaned when Dink wrapped his lips around his sensitive crown, tongued the small slit at the end, and then sucked him deeper into his mouth. Dink groaned. Then he swallowed roughly as he worked the broad tip past the back of his throat.
Panting, fighting for control, Mac bent his knees and planted his feet on the edge of the bed, lifting his hips, forcing his cock deeper down Dink’s throat. Dink took everything, swallowing him down, gently squeezing Mac’s balls with one hand, with the other running his fingers along the crease of his ass.
The lube came next, and the slick slide of Dink’s fingers over that sensitive ring of muscle almost took Mac over the top. Dink must have sensed how close he’d come once again. Slowly, he pulled back and slipped Mac’s cock free of his mouth.
Then Dink sat back on his heels. “Up and over,” he said. He took a deep breath, then another. “On your knees, Mac.”
Mac obeyed. No questions, no hesitation. He knelt in the middle of the big bed, arms folded with his cheek resting on his forearms, butt raised, and he remembered the first time they’d done this, how vulnerable he’d felt. How embarrassed, to have someone back there, looking at his ass like this.
He felt no embarrassment now. No, this was Dink and he trusted him with his life. With everything important to him. It was all good, and he waited, relaxing himself, preparing his body and mind for Dink’s first thrust.
So hard to believe it had been twenty long fucking years. Fingers first. Long, slow strokes between his ass cheeks, then the coolness of the lube, the sensual slide of fingertips through the thick gel, gliding over millions of screaming nerves.
He moaned when Dink paused, slightly swirling a single fingertip over Mac’s anal ring. Then he groaned with the long-remembered pain and pleasure as he felt first one, then two, then three thick fingers when Dink pressed them through Mac’s taut sphincter, stretching tender tissues that hadn’t had this kind of use for way too long.
Mac pushed back against Dink, concentrating on relaxing, on not fighting the intrusion. Welcoming the pain along with the dark rush of pleasure when Dink slipped his fingers out and pressed the sheathed head of his cock against Mac.
Pressed, and carefully pushed against him.
Mac grunted and involuntarily jerked against the burn of entry. “Oh, fuck. I forgot how that felt.” He gasped when Dink chuckled. Then he forced himself to relax, pressed his cheek against his arms, and pushed back against the pressure, pushed until he felt the fiery stretch and give as Dink entered, the smooth, somehow forbidden pleasure as Dink’s swollen cock slid forward and filled him.
His cock was thick and hard, larger than Mac remembered, but Dink moved slowly, carefully, until he was completely seated deep inside. Both of them sighed. Mac snorted a short bark of laughter, bit back the sound, and then almost laughed out loud at himself.
He’d needed that laugh. For a minute there, he’d wondered how well or even if Dink was going to fit.
Mac was still congratulating himself when Dink wrapped his lube-coated fingers around Mac’s erection and began to thrust deep and slow, stroking his full length in time with each rhythmic penetration. In, out, and back in again, the rhythm took hold of Mac, the sense of fullness held him, engulfed him in pleasure, in a sense of homecoming he’d not expected.
This was Dink. The one he loved, the one who loved him. The man who knew all there was to know about MacArthur Dugan.
All except those details he would learn tonight.
Later. When they were both sated. When there was no longer this driving need to find completion, to fuck and be fucked, to love, to forget ... and then to remember.
Dink’s steady thrusts were coming faster now, his deep breaths harsh against Mac’s neck, his balls slapping close up against Mac’s ass. His cock filling Mac with heat and strength and a sense of connection Mac hadn’t realized he’d missed so much.